From a prosthetic leg to £15K cash: The bizarre items left on London’s travel network

From a prosthetic leg to £15K cash: The bizarre items left on London’s travel network

A prosthetic leg, life-sized Spiderman doll and “enough musical instruments to form a band” are just some of the bizarre items lost on London’s travel network.

More than 300,000 items were left on the capital’s trains and buses last year as Transport for London received a record haul of missing goods.

Other peculiar finds included £15,000 cash in a brown envelope and an urn of ashes, which had been kept by workers at the lost property office for almost seven years.

Last year 22 per cent of the 302,714 items handed in were returned to their rightful owners – including the urn and the cash.

Thousands of tablets, umbrellas and wallets were also handed in to TfL’s lost property office – described as a “wonder emporium” by manager Paul Cowan.

Alongside the daily haul of around 150 mobile phones, the office has also received a full-size house carpet, a judge's wig and a hoard of musical instruments including drum kits.

A container filled with mobile phones amongst the lost property

"The number of properties lost is fascinating, every day we're getting well over 1,200 items of property found across the network, it's staggering," Mr Cowan said.

"The volume continues to go up as the number of people living and travelling in London increases."

"Every item that comes in here has a definite story behind it.

“There's the usual suspects, umbrellas, hundreds of books and documents and travel passes, but dispersed amongst that there is all the things that make you scratch your head, what were they doing carrying that or what were they doing with it.

"We've had urns of ashes come through, bundles of notes, we've got enough musical instruments, guitars and trumpets and flutes and clarinets, even drum kits to start our own band."

All items handed in to TfL end up at the three-storey building next to Baker Street station and are stored for three months before being donated to charity, sent to auction or recycled.

Mr Cowan said: "There are many successes and it is one of the most gratifying parts of the jobs, because it is not just us involved.

"It could be the cleaner who finds the item on a train or a bus, it could be another passenger, and it could be a member of TfL staff."

"Getting the item back to the customer and seeing the smile on their face is fantastic."

Staff member Bob Sayer sorts through bags of clothing among the lost property items

Here are just six of the weird and wacky items handed in to Transport for London's lost property offices.

Urn of ashes.

An urn containing the ashes of Thomas Frederick Johnston was kept in the lost property office for seven years as workers tried to reunite it with the family. Eventually a call from Canada came and the family collected him to everyone's delight.

2. A prosthetic leg.

Possibly the hardest item to lose on the Tube but someone managed it. The limb, which runs up to the knee, is even still wearing a trainer with tied laces.

3. Full-sized house carpet.

An off-cut carpet was handed in to staff in November 2015 after one unfortunate passenger walked off without the 10ft textile.

4. 1980s Motorola mobile phone.

150 mobiles, many of them smartphones, are handed in every day across London - but one retro find includes a huge 1980s Motorola phone which comes with a hefty battery pack.

5.Life-sized stuffed Spiderman doll.

Hundreds of cuddly toys go through the doors at lost property HQ but workers took a shine to one misplaced Spiderman doll, which now hangs from the ceiling of one of the storage basements.

6. Hairdresser's mannequin.

One hairdressing student travelling across London decided not to collect their bearded mannequin left behind on a bus and it now lives in a bag of the "weird and wacky" inside TfL lost property.

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